1. United States
2. Tenn.
3. Letter

Thank you for your acknowledgment of my previous letter. I am writing again to reiterate and expand upon the urgency of this matter. The horrific attacks carried out by Hamas on October 7th were atrocious, unlawful, and deserving of condemnation. They were a brutal act of violence against civilians. However, these acts do not, and cannot, grant Israel a blank check to commit genocide, collective punishment, and mass slaughter against the Palestinian population in Gaza and the West Bank. A crime against humanity cannot be the justification for committing further crimes against humanity. It is critical to recognize that this conflict did not begin on October 7th. To frame it as such is to ignore decades of a violent, systemic reality. For years, leading human rights organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have meticulously documented Israel's apartheid regime, its illegal settlement expansion, its military occupation, and the continuous human rights violations perpetrated by its government and extremist settlers against Palestinians. This context of oppression, displacement, and denial of basic rights is not a mere footnote; it is the root cause of the violence we see today. While nothing can justify Hamas's targeting of civilians, it is a predictable and inevitable outcome of a people living under a brutal and hopeless occupation. To ignore this is to ignore the fundamental driver of this cycle of violence. The Israeli government's policies have cultivated the very conditions that fuel extremism. Therefore, our response must be one of moral clarity, not unconditional support. We must reject the logic that the answer to one war crime is the commission of thousands more. The United States must immediately end its complicity. I once again demand that you: 1. Publicly state that Hamas's atrocities do not justify Israel's genocide, apartheid, or collective punishment of the Palestinian people. 2. Publicly denounce the root causes of this violence: Israel's decades-long occupation and apartheid system. 3. Act immediately to co-sponsor and vote for legislation that ends all military aid to Israel. Continuing to provide unconditional funding and diplomatic cover while Israel engages in these actions, and while it actively covers up its own war crimes as the recent whistleblower arrest demonstrates, makes the United States a direct participant in this catastrophe. I expect your office to take a stand for a just foreign policy that upholds human rights for all.